Timeline of the Syrian civil war as U.N. Warns Syria Heading Towards Destruction

 

Latest in Syria Disaster as devolution to total middle east war continues: Click on the subject below that you want to learn more about.   Timeline of the Syrian civil war, Syria Conflict: Cameron Vows More Help:  U.N. Warns Syria Heading Towards Destruction: Car Bomb in Syria's Hama Kills 50 Pro-regime Fighters : Syria's opposition groups convene in Qatar – can they build a unified front? U.N. Warns Syria Heading Towards Destruction: Syrian rebels fire at, miss Assad's palace : Palestinian Refugees Fight Over Syria's War as Gunmen in Damascus Kill Brother of Parliament Speaker, Israel complains about Syrian tanks along Golan Heights border: Turkey considers deployment of "Patriot" missiles on Syria border

*  Timeline of the Syrian civil war:

*  Car Bomb in Syria's Hama Kills 50 Pro-regime Fighters : The suicide car bomb attack on a military post in the central province of Hama struck early Monday, killing at least 50 government troops and loyalist militiamen, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "The post, located at the Centre for Rural Development, is the largest gathering place for troops and pro-regime militiamen in the region," said the Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group. 

 Regime aircraft meanwhile continued to pound rebel-held positions around the country, with one air strike killing at least 20 rebel fighters in the town of Harem in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory said. The rebels have scored significant wins in recent weeks and hold swathes of territory in the country's north, but have come under intense bombardment from the air as President Bashar al-Assad's regime seeks to reverse rebel gains.

* Syria's opposition groups convene in Qatar – can they build a unified front? The Syrian opposition is well aware that it is widely regarded as fragmented and ineffective, and that this is becoming more and more an issue as events on the ground gather pace. The coming days will see the most concerted effort so far to pull the bulk of the opposition together and to create effective and credible structures that the outside world can work with in trying to bring about a transition in Syria.  

Secretary Clinton said last week that "the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition. But that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard."

 * U.N. Warns Syria Heading Towards Destruction:  At this point, no one in Syria – not the government, not the rebels – can emerge from the crisis with an unsullied reputation. Both factions are now strong candidates to face charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. 

Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint special representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, has also hit a dead end both with the Syrian government and the rebel groups fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad, who is refusing to step down or agree to a political compromise. “The United Nations remains helpless against the political and military complexities inside Syria,” says one Asian diplomat. This may well be one of the biggest political failures of the United Nations, he said.

*  Syria Conflict: Cameron Vows More Help: The Prime Minister was expecting to use his first conversation with Barack Obama to tell the newly re-elected US president that the international response to the civil war in Syria "simply isn't working". He said: "Right here in Jordan I'm hearing appalling stories of what is happening inside Syria and one of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis." 

 The PM, who visited the Zatari refugee camp, said: "I wanted to hear for myself the stories of people who have been bombed and shot and blasted out of their homes in Syria by a deeply-illegitimate and unpleasant regime that is raining down death and destruction on its own people. "It is truly horrendous to hear those stories and just redoubles my determination that now, with a newly-elected American president, we have got to do more to help this part of the world, to help Syria achieve transition." 

* Syrian rebels fire at, miss Assad's palace : Residents told Reuters the heavy-caliber shells hit a neighboring residential district that is home to members of Assad's Alawite sect. State-run media said at least three people were killed and seven wounded in what it described as a "terrorist attack".

Syria's war, which has already spilled into neighboring Lebanon and threatened to spread instability in the Middle East, poses one of the greatest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term. Fighters in the mainly Sunni Muslim opposition have stepped up attacks in the capital this week, setting off at least two bombs in areas populated by Alawites and assassinating two figures seen as close to the Assad administration.

 * Israel complains about Syrian tanks along Golan Heights border: Three Syrian tanks entered a demilitarized zone Saturday afternoon along the border with the Golan Heights, spurring Israel to file a complaint with the United Nations, Israeli officials said. The Syrian tanks were battling Syrian rebel forces when the fighting moved into the demilitarized area, Israeli media reported. Israeli officials said they did not view the tanks as a provocation or an attempt to draw Israel into the fighting in Syria, where an uprising against President Bashar Assad has devolved into a civil war. 

It’s not the first time violence from Syria’s war has drifted into the Golan Heights. In September, errant mortars struck the region. Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East War and announced in 1981 that it was annexing the region, though the move was not recognized by the international community. 

* Turkey considers deployment of "Patriot" missiles on Syria border: Turkey considers the Patriot missiles on its territory as a precaution against a potential Syrian military offensive, while Syrian bombings on the southern border of Turkey have increased tensions between the two countries.

Turkey and the United States consider the deployment of missiles in the Turkish province of Kilis (south), and the missiles should protect an area of 60 km up to the Syrian city of Aleppo, the newspaper said. Turkey's move also aims to protect civilians and Syrian opposition forces from shelling by the Syrian government, it added.

James Joiner

Gardner, Ma

http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

Rebels tighten the noose around Assad's Syria as Assad said to be planning exit

Syrian defector says Assad planning exit: A former member of Syrian President Bashar Assad's media office who defected to Turkey says Assad and his family are preparing to escape to Russia. Russia is preparing more than 300 apartments for Assad's extended family.

 I know that after 60 days the Assad family will escape gradually," he told Qatar's Arab-language television station in an interview in southern Turkey this week. Assad will be the last to leave the country and will only do so after he receives international guarantees that he won't be subjected to prosecution, al-Omar claimed.

In a sign of escalating tensions, Turkey diverted its civilian planes Friday to avoid using Syrian airspace. The two neighbors have been engaged in a diplomatic tussle since Turkish civilians died in cross-border shelling last week. Turkey imposed the new route for Jeddah-bound planes because it considers Syrian airspace unsafe, according to the official Turkish news agency. The route mostly affects pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia. Planes will use airspace belonging to Jordan and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, said TRT, the news agency.

Turkey used F-16 warplanes to force a Syrian airliner from Russia to land at Ankara's airport for a search Wednesday.Turkey has intercepted Iranian shipments of arms headed to Syria through Turkish territory and airspace over the past year. In those cases, the government remained similarly silent about the nature of those shipments, perhaps to avoid embarrassing Iran, a neighbor and major Turkish trading partner. Once-strong relations between Turkey and Syria have grown tense over the past year after the Syrian government began a bloody crackdown.

THE Syrian army has suffered its highest death toll since the start of rebel hostilities with at least 87 soldiers killed in one day, an observer group says, amid fears the civil war could become a broader conflict as tensions with Turkey escalate. 

 Thursday was one of the deadliest days of fighting with at least 210 people killed across the country, including 64 rebel fighters and 59 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The war of words between Syria and Turkey heightened when Ankara said on Thursday that it had found military supplies on a passenger plane it intercepted en route between Moscow and Damascus.

  Syrian rebels captured an air defense base east of Aleppo on Friday as government forces battled insurgents on several fronts across the country, activists said. Clashes were also taking place at a military barracks close to Maarat al-Nuaman, a town on the main highway to the northwestern city of Aleppo which was seized by rebel forces earlier this week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The pro-opposition Observatory gave a death toll for Thursday of more than 260 people, including civilians and combatants on both sides in violence in the capital and the north, west and east. It said 92 soldiers were killed on Thursday 

We have to wonder what is going to happen when Assad falls. Will he use his Chemical weapons and blow this wide open before he takes flight? I think not because Russia is against it. After what Russia has done to the Syrian people there is no way in the short or long term I can see the rebels allowing Russia to stay in country at all. A new Syria is not going to be allied with Iran so how will this affect Iran beyond further alienation?

 

This has turned into sectarian warfare with a myriad of outside interference and not just from Al Qaeda. This is no longer just about unseating Bashar Al Assad. What is to come I am afraid will be worse than what Syria was  under Assad.

You have to be very concerned about what is happening in Syria. I still have a problem believing Russia, China, and Iran are  going to allow Syria to fall to Democracy. What we saw after the voter fraud in Iran was mild compared to what the IRG will do if this movement spreads to Iran. I really wish Bashar would step down but Iran is the elephant in the room any way you look at it. The total middle east breakdown we have written about numerous times is well under way. We can only hope we keep it from erupting into WW3.

In closing: You know Putin just got himself reelected as President, he did this so he could be at the helm of Russia as he like me knows 100% that world war is our future. He plans on marshaling China who is rapidly building a more formidable military and whoever he can to take on US hegemony.Russia watched helplessly as we had our way in Libya. Putin blames what is happening in Syria on our interference and Libya for training the protesters to fight against Bashar Al-Assad.

Putin is going to do everything possible to keep us from helping the Syrian people and I really feel for them. I do not see this going down the way Libya did and Iran and Russia are going to make sure it does not. I am afraid the Syrian people are going to be sacrificed, sacrificed in what is merely an opening salvo in this the wars for future dominance. I just heard that Russia is gathering forces to go into Iran via Armenia for a quick strike through Georgia. We have a showdown setting up that looks disastrous for the worlds future. It will be a miracle if we can keep this from turning into WW3!



James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

Russia says Assad will not back down first but shouldn't he?

First, Russia knows damn well that Bashar Al-Assad is wantonly slaughtering as many people as they can. They have resorted to daily attacks on cities and citizens including Alawite's Assad's own sect using tanks and fighter jets. They have purposely resorted to strafing bread lines, killing doctors and bombing hospitals. It is ludicrous for Russia to say it is wrong to expect Assad to stop this first and withdraw its troops from the cities..

Assad will not back down first: Russia said Saturday it would be "naive" for outside powers to expect Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to withdraw his troops first from cities and then wait for the opposition to follow suit. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said such a demand on the regime amounted to a call for "capitulation" that Western and Arab nations had no right to make.

"When our partners say that the government must stop first and withdraw all its soldiers and weapons from cities - and only then call on the opposition to do the same - well, this is a completely unworkable scheme," said Lavrov. "Either people are naive or it is some sort of provocation," he noted in answering questions from students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

On top of that, we knew from day one that if there was to be success for the rebels against Assad who is killing hundreds of his own people every day that almost the entire military would have to defect and take on Assad. As of August 27 the FSA said more than 60,000 of all ranks and all disciplines from the highest ranking General on down have defected with many more waiting for their chance to defect.

Long Wait to Defect From Assads Forces: “We don’t go on patrol any more. We spend the days without leaving the barracks, following the news on TV. We have not fired a single bullet since the beginning of the revolution.” Some have suggested that the Democratic Unionist Party (PYD), the dominant political party among the Kurds of Syria, may have negotiated truce with Bashar Al Assad’s government. Party chairman Salah Muslim has denied to IPS that there has been any agreement.Many within Syria also suggest that Damascus has abandoned this region in an attempt to distance Kurds from the Free Syrian Army forces.

Furat says he has “no problem whatsoever with the PYD.” But he can hardly hide his anxiety. “I tried to flee to Turkey but the Syrian army captured me and I was detained for ten days. Today it would be impossible to get back home due the myriad of checkpoints manned by both rebels and the government. “Many comrades say they will wait at their positions and put down their weapons when the FSA arrives, but nobody knows what will happen when the rebels reach this area. I doubt I’ll get my salary this month, so I’ll try to cross to Turkey or Iraq at the first opportunity.” Another policeman, Dilhar, recalls his recent defection.

Add this to the 23,000 Assad's murderers have already killed along with some 500,000 that have already fled the country and rightly so unless they had the will to stay and fight Assad, plus the knowledge that some 2 1/2 million people need aid aid, food, medicine, and shelter. Don't you think Assad should back off first?

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had killed 27 people, while 12 soldiers died in the fighting. More than 23,000 people have died since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, according to the U.K. based observatory. Two explosive devices also rocked an area near a government military unit in Damascus, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported on its website, without saying where it got the information. Al Arabiya television, citing a rebel group, said the bombing targeted the Syrian army’s command.

More than 2.5 million people need aid, protection inside Syria as China says safe zone will not work: "More than two and a half million people, including the refugees from Palestine and Iraq, are now in great need of the assistance and protection inside Syria," Eliasson said. "This is more than double the number (UN) Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos reported to you in March." "The most pressing needs include water and sanitation, food and shelter, blankets and health care," he said. "Less than half of primary health care facilities and hospitals are now fully functional in Syria."

"The destruction of pharmaceutical plants and storage facilities is making drugs and equipment scarce," he said. "At the same time, the number of people in need of medical care increases." "Access to health facilities has become difficult or impossible in some areas due to violence, check points and fuel shortages," he said. "Food prices have tripled in some areas."


Syrian troops take town on refugee flight route: Syrian troops recaptured from rebels Thursday a border town used by refugees to cross to Jordan, activists said, an apparent bid by the regime to stem the flood of Syrians fleeing their country's civil war. Damascus meanwhile accused Cairo of stirring up violence in the country, as Syria lengthens the list of other Arab countries that it blames for its unrest. Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi called this week for Syria's president to step down in an indication of the increasing isolation of Damascus in the Arab world.

In the latest clashes, hundreds of Syrian soldiers backed by 20 tanks assaulted Tel Chehab, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and local activist Mohammed Abu Houran said. Rebels fought back but were pushed out. A Jordanian army officer living just across the border said by telephone that he had heard heavy shelling starting early in the morning, but that it had subsided by midday. "It sounded like the shelling came from tanks and armored vehicles," said the officer, who cannot be identified under standing army regulations. "God help the Syrian people."

This is no way to get the people on your side. Forcing them to stay in the cities without the basic necessities of life so you can eradicate them is not the way to success. Unless Russia comes out in the open to help Assad stay in power, despite Iran's, Russia's, and Hezbollah's help the rebels will persevere. It is what comes after that that is grossly disconcerting not only in rebuilding Syria but in preventing the devolution of the middle east into all out sectarian war and then WW3.



James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com

Syria's Assad says come home you have nothing to fear. What?

Syrian warplanes kill 32 in one fly by, do you think it is safe to come home?

Syria: 26283 victims in 18 months, 5440 in August alone, 2.5 million need aid, Assad says come home you have nothing to fear. What? Look at the stories and read what you need to.

Syrians urged to come back home : As violence raged in Syria, a government official Monday urged citizens who've fled the nation to come home "immediately," saying they have no reason to fear.What? Look at the slideshow and look at the latest facts, stay away I say!

Syria: 26283 victims in 18 months, 5440 in August alone: (AGI) Beirut - Since the beginning of the Syrian revolt 26283 people died. The breakdown includes 18695 civilians, 1079 deserters fro, Bashar Assad's forces and 6509 loyalists. The escalation is confirmed by last month's toll. August has been the bloodiest month so far with 5440 victims. The stats were provided by the London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, one of the main organizations opposing the Damascus regime. . .

Another week in the violent, murderous and divided world of Syria: The story depends on where you go in this divided capital. Yesterday, I take another prowl, through the Damascus suburbs; Malayha, Harasta, Zamalka, Bab Shawkeh. Thirty government checkpoints, maybe 40, but in Harasta, the Syrian Arab Republic has no sway. There are dozens of painted green, white and black FSA flags on the walls. "The free people of Harasta are denied their liberty," a slogan informs us. "Assad should go." There's a mosque so packed that the crowds have spilled on to the boiling roadway; a guy in a pick-up tells us it's safe to head for the motorway.

An opposition man. A Syrian soldier in sunglasses waves us back to the autostrade of the Syrian Arab Republic. We drive through the Assad Suburb, government housing, though some home-owners have rented to people from Zabadani – maybe a little security problem? – and just past the Tishreen military hospital (former student, one Bashar al-Assad), there's an explosion and a car with headlights zipping the street dust under its shrieking tyres and a pulverised dead dog lying inside a garage.

Syria Army Kill 144, Some 'Execution Style,' Opposition Says: Opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said government forces killed 144 people yesterday, including 74 in and around the capital, Damascus. Among the dead were 35 people killed in al-Fan, a village in Hama province, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group. An activist named Thair al- Hamawi told Al-Jazeera television that many of the victims were killed “execution-style” or with knives.

Earlier yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had killed 27 people, while 12 soldiers died in the fighting. More than 23,000 people have died since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, according to the U.K. based observatory. Two explosive devices also rocked an area near a government military unit in Damascus, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported on its website, without saying where it got the information. Al Arabiya television, citing a rebel group, said the bombing targeted the Syrian army’s command.

More than 2.5 million people need aid, protection inside Syria as China says safe zone will not work: "More than two and a half million people, including the refugees from Palestine and Iraq, are now in great need of the assistance and protection inside Syria," Eliasson said. "This is more than double the number (UN) Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos reported to you in March." "The most pressing needs include water and sanitation, food and shelter, blankets and health care," he said. "Less than half of primary health care facilities and hospitals are now fully functional in Syria."

"The destruction of pharmaceutical plants and storage facilities is making drugs and equipment scarce," he said. "At the same time, the number of people in need of medical care increases." "Access to health facilities has become difficult or impossible in some areas due to violence, check points and fuel shortages," he said. "Food prices have tripled in some areas."

* Well what do you think is it safe to come home?

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com